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Wednesday, June 17, 2009

To sleep, perchance to dream...

Hi!Since she was born, Paige has not been big on sleeping for long stretches. Pretty normal for a new infant I suppose. Her naps during the day were very short. Perhaps a half-hour at best when she napped. And her evenings have been about sleeping for two hours after an hour long feed/change/burp fest. Again, not too shocking for a young infant. But it doesn't make me have to like it! We all know that fragmented sleep is NOT the same as one smooth stretch of sleep. My poor mother can tell you that, especially after my tearful calls last week desperate to be talked down from my fatigued ledge (not to mention her OWN battles with it from us kids.) Paige's six-week fussy period has been crazy. But we're alive! Barely! There were moments I wished I would spontaneously combust, but Mom's advice of "it will get better" and "this next hour will be better than the last" helped me along. Paige turned 7 weeks old yesterday. And to celebrate this week, she slept for 2 hour naps all day the day before. And last night she went down to bed at almost 8 o'clock after a feed on some new formula and her little bedtime routine. We also are trying out a new LED nightlight in her room that glows green and is shaped like a flat little tv screen. It gives out WAY less light than a standard nightlight and makes the room much, much darker. Well, my friends, I woke up to her little noises at 1:50 in the morning! For us, this is a HUGE deal. She's never had such a long stretch of sleep!!! Is it the new formula? The new, earlier bedtime (she usually goes down after the next feeding cycle by 11:00)? The cool new nightlight? All three? Either way, it worked. She's still small and will likely need to wake in the night for a feed for a few weeks to come, but these longer stretches of sleep are like a jug of water in the desert. I also know that last night could be an isolated incident and I shouldn't get too excited yet. But, I am going to celebrate anyway because it means it is POSSIBLE!!! I'm not going to rain on my parade yet. And if you are wondering, we switched from regular Similac Advance to Similac Sensitive RS. No, I'm not breastfeeding (due to medical issues I won't go into here so please don't judge or criticize...I'm fragile you know) The new kind of formula is supposed to help reduce spit up and gas. It definitely seems to do this so far! Her spit up has gotten ridiculous as of late, so I decided it was time to make the switch. She doesn't have reflux or anything...just a "happy spitter" as her doctor calls it. The new stuff is pretty darn sticky in comparison to the old kind and it doesn't seem to ooze everywhere out of her mouth as she eats. The only challenge right now is figuring out which nipple size to use. One size takes her FOREVER to eat (close to an hour for a few ounces and she has to work very hard at it) and the other size makes the food FLOW right out (ok when she's hungry, but not in the middle of the night when she's sleepy and can't keep up). I wish there was a happy middle option. Anyway, this post is horribly boring in general... But exciting for me, so THERE! A little milestone has been touched and I must mention it. So, if in a few years we have another child, I can look back in my tearful desperation and see that HEY! maybe things will improve at 7 weeks!? And, in closing, now that I've told you all about this, she will go back to 2 hour stretches. If so, we will always have the memories. Oh, the memories. "Meeemorieeeees, light the corners of my miiiiiiiind........." *fade to black*

That is very good news that Paige is sleeping more and spitting up less! My guess is the change in formula helped a lot, but you never know why they do what they do! As for the bottle nipples, you could use a scissor or razor blade and cut the hole on the smaller one to be a little bit bigger. Just a thought.